Sawtooth Relay, 2011

Back in November or so, my friend Brittani approached me and some other girls if we'd like to run the Sawtooth Relay with her in June. I said sure and then went on with my life. I'd already been running consistently for almost a year (ever since Andrew was born), so I figured it would be no big deal. Brittani explained that there would be six of us, and we'd each run about 5 miles twice. So a month later we filled out our paper work, submitted the pace we each ran a mile, came up with a name for our team and just kept running.

In May, we got our start time. One in the morning. And then I started to re-think what I had agreed to do. It's one thing to run five miles on my treadmill in my environmentally controlled den. No hills. No rain. No cold. Usually around 8:30 in the morning after a good night's sleep. But it's quite another thing to run five miles at one in the morning, in the dark, in the cold, uphill, and possibly in the rain with no sleep. And then, five hours later, to run another five miles. People kept telling us that the Galena summit, where one of us would be running, was still snow packed.

But what the heck, we'd already paid, and we'd been running for six months so we charged on! To be honest, it wasn't an option to not charge on.

We packed our bags, came up with names for our legs to help inspire us, decorated Elise's suburban, and headed out.

Renee, Karla, Elise, me, Brittani, Jacque about to load up. We were only going to be gone over night, but we brought enough stuff to keep us going indefinitely! At least, that's what the back of the car looked like!

We got a hotel room, even though our start time was 1:00 am. (I'm going keep throwing that number out there for emphasis. 1:00 am.) We figured we could have a place to eat dinner and then maybe get an hour or two of sleep before we had to report to the starting line (at 1:00 am).

So we had a great dinner, and then some of us tried to sleep.

Here we are (at 1:00 am) getting ready to send Renee off! We had to wear reflective vests and head lamps if we were running before 6:00 am. My first leg was the second position. I was a bit nervous about it, but I have to say, running in the dark was super cool. I felt really isolated, and alone, but never abandoned. I couldn't see any land marks, or anything at all. I just kept my eyes on the white line and kept going. It was a really cool experience, and it felt great.

Here's Brittani running her first leg, at about 5:00 am. The sun was beginning to come up.

Now we're waiting for Brittani to come in and exchange with Jacque. Jacque was going to run up the summit. It was 5 miles of straight up a mountain. Crazy. We drove up it and kept saying, "Holy Cow." But she ran the whole thing, and we were super impressed.

I have to say, after my first run I was freezing, and it took me a long time to warm up. It was about 30 degrees in this picture, and we were freezing. We got smart this time and brought the blankets out of the car with us. The last exchange we hadn't and stood there freezing waiting for Karla to show up. It was pretty miserable.

Here I am on my second run. It was all downhill, which was pretty much what kept me going. I didn't enjoy this run as much as the first--it was super hard to get going again. But I did it, and was very happy to be done.

Here's Brittani coming in to exchange with Karla. Karla finished up our race for us. She was such a trooper. She trained and trained for months, getting so she could run five miles in a row. She had not run before Brittani recruited her to be on the relay team. So she had worked really hard and was super excited. She'd send us encouraging notes and texts as we were training, and really set the mood of excitement while we were driving around in the middle of the night. But a week before our race, she tore a calf muscle, and couldn't run. We had plans that she'd start her legs, and if she couldn't finish one of us would step in and do it for her. So she set off at 4;00 am, in 30 degree weather and power walked 5 miles. It was awesome. And then, she finished us off with a 2 mile walk by the river into the park.

Thank you girls for inspiring me, for making me work hard, for all the middle of the night laughs, and the crazy tired laughs as we drove home. Thank you for your friendship, and we'll do it again next year!